Hooray! We’re off to the moon. UK scientists are working on the deisgn of a moon lander that would also be used on Mars missions.
It seems to me that if we are to spend billions of pounds on firing rockets into the air, how much better it would be if they flew off to the moon or Mars, in a spirit of discovery and exploration. Instead we develop rockets designed to vapourise hundreds of thousands of people. We are a very silly species.
Of course, supporters of Trident cite the unreliable regimes of North Korea and Iran as proof that we need to maintain a deterrent. But I reckon a trip to the moon would be better than a deterrent – it would be a demoraliser. Can you imagine a bigger “fuck you” to send to Ahmadinejad, than an YouTube message from the moon?
As an incentive, countries that disarm would be offered a seat on the spaceship. The sight of your country’s flag, billowing in the vacuum by means of a support wire. What could bring greater glory to your land and people?
Tag: Space Travel (Page 4 of 5)
President Richard Nixon, on 20th July 1969:
Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man’s world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one, one in their pride of what you have done and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.
Don’t forget that there is another Shuttle Mission in progress at the moment: STS116. I’ve been listening to the cockpit communications this afternoon, which (as I have mentioned before) I find quite medative.
CFrew of STS-116, 9th Dec 2006 (Photo © NASA)
It might be a cliche to draw attention to the diversity of the shuttle crews (much was made of the fact that the ill-fated Columbia crew included an Indian and Israeli astronauts). To point out that this person is a woman, or that person is black, seems an odd thing to do when they are in orbit, hundreds of miles above the earth.
But, when we continue to see so many examples of intolerance and racism in the world, I think it is worth re-emphasising, and celebrating the equality of race, gender and religion we see aboard the space shuttles. These people, the vanguard of human exploration of space, are drawn exclusively from the group of those who have transcended prejudice and tribalism to become representatives of, simply, humanity. Do you suppose someone with Ahmedinejad’s world-view could muster the attitude of co-operation necessary to explore the heavens?
A reader named Ray Storer makes a popular yet pertinent point over at the BBC NEWS Have Your Say pages:
Our common values are; We’re all human: All living on the same floating ball in the cosmos and if we don’t learn to get along with one another then the consequences will be our own doing or undoing.
Whenever a news programme brings us tidings from elsewhere in the world, they invariably begin with a map showing where they are reporting. The BBC uses a globe, which spins around from the Greenwhich Meridian, then zooms in on the flash-point of the moment (sometimes it spins the wrong way, but we can forgive that). During the Lebanon crisis, I felt there was something very disconcerting, about being reminded that we are marooned on ball of rock, immediately before watching images of the house-by-house destruction. Watching the tragic images of war in close-up, one gets lost in the complexity of the situation, and the grievances of both sides. However, the image of the globe, in all its enormous, lonely glory, streches our perspective, and we begin to look like a bunch of Liliputians.
Douglas Adams and his Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. Terry Pratchett and his Discworld series. I think that these guys have a better conception of our world and the humans on it, compared with the Holy Books of the God in whose name we maim and kill.
The Space Shuttle Discovery is about an hour away from it’s “de-orbit burn”, where they flip the craft upside-down, and fire their engines. It falls out of orbit and becomes a very expensive glider. I highly recommend a trip over to NASA TV where you can watch the transition happen.
What I do not recommend is that you wait until the last moments before landing to load the video stream. Last year, the RealPlayer stream, which I had been running smoothly in the background for a good half hour before landing, failed on me literally seconds before touch down. I blamed all those Fair Weather Shuttle Watchers who hadn’t put in the hours beforehand, overloading the system at the eleventh hour. By the time the stream came back online, the moment had passed and the crew were out on the tarmac.
The same thing happened in April 2005 when the new Pope was chosen. All morning I had been vieiwing the BBC PopeCam, which was pointed at the Sistine Chapel Chimney. So it came to pass that I noticed the white smoke before the crowd in St Peter’s Square. But yet again, when the time came for the actual announcement, the stream became overloaded when thousands of rapturous Catholics followed the same link. “Habemus Papum! The new Pope is…” Crackle. Zip.
UPDATE: Landed at 1315 GMT, and I got to see the whole thing.
An image from the NASA website depicts Briton Piers J Sellars working on the ISS (International Space Station) during an EVA (Extra Vehicular Activity, more commonly known as a space-walk). Sellars had some difficulty during his second EVA yesterday, when his emergency jet thruster back-pack came loose from its tether. Fortunately his colleague Mike Fossum was on hand to secure it in place.
A close examination of Sellars suit reveals a graphic of an astronaut, drawn in the style of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. I love this kind of witty design thinking. Its also an appropriate symbol – The multipurpose logistics module being delivered to the ISS is called Leonardo.